My Name is Troy and I have just turned 43. For those of you who are above 40 you already know exactly what this blog is going to be about. It's waking up one morning and realizing all of your opportunities have seemingly passed you by and your major choices have all been made. Because many of those choices were made out of panic or necessity or lack of funds makes that morning all that much more shocking.
My morning was at 41 but let's just round it down because it sounds better as a title. But that morning was August 16th 2011, my forty-first birthday. I had been married for twenty years. I had three nearly grown kids, a frustrated wife, a house that was in disrepair and we were still a single car family. Technically we had two cars but the second one was a hand me down that my younger sister gave my eldest son (yes my YOUNGER sister). We actually paid for one car. To make matters more interesting my spine gave up nine years earlier and I had been on hardcore pain pills ever since.
Not much has changed in the past two years. My wife still mows the lawn as the neighbor men look on and figure I'm a deadbeat. How do I know that? They tell her. I still work for a beer distributor who's main product rhymes with WudBeiser. I do graphics and make posters upstairs with a couple of good hearted guys who all realize that nobody cares that we are up there until they need a poster or a mounted sign. Then we are the most important people on the premises (until they have their artwork in hand).
So on that morning I looked back and thought to myself, "How did I get here? I was just twenty-five last night." The only claim to fame I can tell you about is that I was an actor in a Subway commercial a couple of years ago that aired ONCE nationally at the bottom of your screen during one of the big Nascar races in Florida. I didn't even get a Subway sandwich on that set. That Jared guy is full of crap. I had so many dreams, had I gone to Cal-Arts when I planned to, I might be one of the founding animators at Pixar, but who knows, I really like being a dad and working near my family. Those Pixar guys sleep under their desks when making movies. I don't think I could handle that.
Anyway, I have hope for the future, but this first post gives you an idea of where this blog is coming from. It is also a call to action for those of you under 40 to get to it, time flies...
